Miranda's Demons

by Ian Miller

  "What makes you so sure that will happen?" Harvey Munro interrupted.

  "I don't," Halas said with a shrug, "but my guess is that if they win, I'd better find a flat rock to lie under, well away from you."

  "At least you've still got some perspective," Harvey gave a chuckle. "So, you were saying?"

  "Assume a victory celebration. We want Claudius executed before he has the chance to take power, and this is in your interest. You will be fully informed of his movements. How you do it, and with whom, is up to you. I simply don't want to know any details, but I want Claudius dead, after the M'starn are defeated."

  "Agreed," Harvey said with a nod. "Now, time to stop the games. What do you want?"

  "That," Halas said slowly, "is more difficult, because it has to be one-off, and it has to leave us in balance, so to speak. You will want to be sure I won't come at you again, and I have to be sure you won't simply eliminate me."

  "Get to the point!"

  "The simplest way would be for you to arrange for me to marry Jennifer Munro."

  "What?" Harvey yelled. "You think you're –"

  "I know," Halas smiled, full of confidence.

  "And suppose she won't have a bar of it?"

  "Then I guess I'll have to woo her," Halas said, "or you'll have to persuade her. But you see, this is our little Balance. Nobody will try to use the information against you again, because I know who they are. You won't move against me, because that would remove your protection from the others, who would then be free to act against you. I can't do anything against you without ruining the marriage, and risking divorce, which would lose me everything. I can't move against the others because that would remove my protection against you. Everybody gets one bite of the cherry, and then the glue is stuck. As an aside, it also keeps the Environment Commission at bay, and you will get an additional ally whom, I might add without appearing too boastful, could be useful to you in the future."

  "I don't know," Munro shook his head.

  "Then think about it," Halas said, and made an exaggerated effort to be seen looking at his watch. "Take your time, but don't take too much."

  "I suppose you know Jennifer already has a boyfriend?"

  "I would think that would be a problem you could deal with."

  "Jennifer may not like –"

  "Jennifer may become very vulnerable, and more amenable to my charms," Halas said. "It's up to you."

  "Isn't there another way?"

  "Possibly," Halas said, "but I can't think of it. However, if you can come up with something that leaves us both in Balance, that's fine by me. The problem is, with your power it has to be fairly robust from my point of view. Also, it'll have to be quick." Halas sat back in his chair, and glanced at the large clock on the wall.

  "Jennifer might find you too old, or –"

  "Too fat? Go on. Say it!"

  "Well, she might."

  "Then that could be unfortunate. I think you might have to try and persuade her."

  "All right! Agreed!" Munro said. "But you'd better get into shape, and fast. If she won't go along with it, believe me, there isn't a lot I can do."

  "I'm sure there really is," Halas remarked. "I'm sure you'll find there are a number of friends she'd like to see stay alive."

  "You're a cruel bastard at heart, aren't you?"

  "Then perhaps I'll fit in nicely," Halas said slowly.

  After Halas left, Harvey Munro returned to his office and stared at the wall for some time. For the first time in his life he was unsure of what to do. His first thought was to get some men to abduct Halas, squeeze the information out of him, but he had to admit that might not happen quickly enough. A Federation Commissioner was not the easiest person to access, and in any case, that sort of action was usually a last resort. Halas claimed to have insurance, and Munro was prepared to believe him. Added to which, from that performance Halas was not necessarily the worst ally in the world.

  It was fascinating, Harvey thought, that a bureaucrat like Halas, while he was breaking the law, and for that matter risking his life, still had to follow bureaucratic principles. The two million was almost certainly for two other associates, and genius was not required to guess who they were. All the same, if they would each settle for a million, good on them. Halas was different. He had almost certainly added in the third bit, and in a fit of bureaucratic stupidity could not bring himself to take money as well. No, everything had to have a file with one entry. Ridiculous! This little separate plan would be squashed, but not yet. It had to look as if it might be working for a while, which meant getting that idiotic boyfriend out of the way. That was no problem, and he would probably have gotten around to that sooner or later. Eventually Halas would be offered a further option: money or his life. But for the meantime, why not make it look as if Halas's plan was working?

  * * *

  Beth Hanson looked up from her file as she saw Harvey Munro and another man in his mid to late thirties walk towards the elevator. Her attention was immediately caught when she heard the younger man say, "I'm sure I can make Jennifer happy for the rest of her life." Harvey Munro shrugged; he was really not interested, but he was clearly very troubled about something. Beth immediately slipped out the back of the filing room, and ran down the corridor to the master security room. She focused the main lobby camera on the elevator doors, and when the unknown man came out, she zoomed in on him and quickly took a print. She locked the image, and then sent the main computers for an identity check. The answer, when it came, left her puzzled.

  Chapter 6

  Harry rushed back to his room. At last! A disc from Australia. It was now some weeks since he had heard from Jane, although he had long since realized she was not a great correspondent. He eagerly opened the parcel and slipped the disc into his player. He turned it on and saw, to his surprise, there was only sound. Not even video! No matter! At least it was from Jane.

  "Hello Harry," came the flat voice. Harry sat back in surprise. The flat tone was not what he had expected. "By now I guess you'll be completing your course, and thinking of coming back here, so I thought I'd better send this. I hope you've been successful. No! I know you'll have been. If I know you, you'll have got to the top somehow, in something, and you'll be a space pilot.

  "I know that this'll be very very dangerous for you, now there're these aliens here, and I guess you'll be up there fighting." There was a pause, then the flat voice continued, "Harry, I really wish you all the luck in the world. I know you may need it. I gather in a battle you'll be outclassed, at least in terms of your ships. Please take care, and don't do anything too heroic.

  "I keep wondering what life at Tashkent is like. I guess there're a lot of really smart girls around. Maybe you've even been flying with some of them. Maybe you've even fallen in love. I hope so, 'cause I want the best for you, Harry." Harry sat stunned. The full realization was only beginning to dawn. It dawned very quickly.

  "Harry, soon I'm getting married. I know this'll come as a shock, but I can't help it. I'm breaking our engagement, because really I can't see myself sitting on the ground at Tashkent waiting for you, knowing you're up there with some other woman. Anyway, I also met this guy at Georgy's one night, and we had a lot of fun. He's really high up in one of the corporations, and we're going to have this huge wedding . . ."

  Stunned, Harry turned off the sound. He stared around his barren little room, and flung himself on his bed.

  Two hours later, he began to record a reply. He recorded for some time, not getting much beyond the first two sentences. Then he gave up without putting anything on disc, he erased the memory, then he fell back on the bed.

  * * *

  Since their break-up, Marisa had avoided Harry very successfully, but it was only after the disc that Harry really felt the avoidance. Christmas came, and most of the pilots managed to obtain home leave. Neither Harry nor Marisa left the base, yet somehow Marisa still managed to avoid Harry. For several days Harry unsuccessfully looked for her. Finally, the meeti
ng could not be avoided, but it was Marisa who saw Harry first.

  "The bridegroom looks less than dashing," she taunted from behind his left shoulder.

  Harry turned, his eyes lifting. "It's over," her said, then, after an embarrassing pause, "Marisa?"

  "Yes?" came the haughty reply.

  "I was wondering if I could persuade you to –"

  "Oh, you did, did you? Lost number one, so back to second best. Little Marisa's still available!"

  "It's not like that.." Harry started to protest. He had been about to ask her to navigate for him in the final contest, but he also had to admit that he would have liked to take the relationship further.

  "You're right. It isn't! I'll see you dead first," she snarled, and turned and strode off. Harry was about to follow, then he saw several faces staring at him. He had not realized that most of this conversation had been overheard. He shrugged and walked off.

  Chapter 7

  There was one final competition before formal graduation from the academy, not that graduation meant anything until the war was over. All the pilots who were to graduate had already carried out three missions, although very few of these had been eventful in any way. The last of the competitions had been, in previous years, a last consolation opportunity for those who had not done as well as they might have wished in the earlier competitions, and traditionally those who had already won trophies did not enter. This year it was different. Because it was the closest competition to space combat it was considered to be the ultimate contest for those aiming at a leadership commission.

  The competition was simple in concept. Fighters were to carry out simulated combat in the space junkyard. This was a volume of space in which the derelict space vehicles and other waste objects were assembled. The mass was so large that it formed a veritable three dimensional maze which, because all the items had entered on slightly different trajectories, all items had slightly different orbits. And because it was not planar, there were a number of inevitable, albeit relatively soft, collisions. Accordingly, the relative positions of the various objects were continuously changing, so there was no totally predictable "map" for any time.

  The objective was simple; the two contestants would enter from opposing directions, and would attempt to find each other. Once the target was found, the objective was to shoot at it electronically. Each ship had computer control that adjusted the ship's performance to allow for the damage it had sustained, and the battle went on until through the computer system it was judged that sufficient damage would have been done to destroy the target. There had been endless discussion among the pilots as to what the best strategy was.

  "It's fairly obvious to me," Harry had said to one group, "but of course I'd only play it in a final."

  The discussion became even more heated through the next few days; the question was, what, if anything, was Harry's strategy? Was he merely trying to psyche out his opponents? At first the consenus was yes, but the discussion became even more heated when it became apparent that Harry would not be in the final. A pilot and co-pilot/navigator was required. Harry had made no effort to find a partner, hoping that Marisa would respond to the note he had written to her. Marisa also did not enter, but Harry did not notice that van Lugt had not either. Then, at the last moment, those two announced their entry, and Harry was without a satisfactory co-pilot. As van Lugt noted, now Harry would not have the opportunity to demonstrate his strategy in the final, because, with the remaining navigators, he would not get there. Harry quickly assessed the remaining navigators, and agreed. To the surprise of the medium-level training officers at Tashkent, he decided not to enter. Did he not wish the best commission? The short answer was yes, but he had no intention of worsening his chances by getting knocked out in an early stage through faulty navigation.

  The contest began, as suspected, with a number of slightly damaged ships; the lesser pilots tended to lose out not by their opponent's skill but rather by their colliding with some object. But the contest soon sorted itself out into relatively predictable lines, and it was soon obvious that van Lugt/Robeiro would make the final. Indeed, their position was secure three days before the other finalist was found.

  On the day of the final. Harry was strolling towards the control centre, intending to watch the imminent launches when he noticed Mike Pennlington, one of the other finalists, hail Colonel Stefanov, the base commander, in the hallway, and hand him a note.

  "You intend to withdraw?" the Colonel asked incredulously.

  "No choice," Pennlington replied sadly. "My pilot's ill and I can't find either a suitable pilot or a navigator, and I'm not permitted to fly solo. I gather he's going to have surgery today. You can check with the medical centre."

  "There's no need to do that," the Colonel shrugged. "I don't doubt . . . Wait! Lieutenant Lansfeld!"

  Harry turned back, having walked past the pair. "Yes, sir?"

  "Pennlington's got to withdraw from the final, as I'm sure you overheard. The rules on substitutes are that nobody who's entered in another team may substitute, but you didn't enter. I know you refused on the grounds of no adequate co-pilot, but I would –"

  "Pennlington's fine," Harry interrupted, "provided he lets me command."

  "A bit cheeky, isn't it?" the Colonel asked. "He did get to the final himself." He did not add that this was the sort of competitive attitude that the training was supposed to generate.

  "Yes, but I've been telling everyone I've got a winning strategy. I'm never going to live this down if I don't use it. As far as I'm concerned, Mike's name can be the formal commander. All I want is the actual hands on command."

  "I see," Stefanov mused. "Well, Pennlington, it's over to you." His face, however, showed that the military were hardly likely to be impressed by a withdrawal when Pennlington was being offered by far the highest scoring candidate in the other combat contests.

  "I'd be pleased to see Harry's strategy," Pennlington smiled. "I've got to admit the betting so far is eight to one against me. All I ask is that you give me time to put in a last minute bet before everyone knows Harry's flying."

  "Then do it down in the storeroom," Harry said. "While you're down there, get me two hundred metres of light weight darkened foil, two hundred meters of two millimeter thick aluminium wire, half a dozen Z-6 unions, two packets of standard plugs and sockets, and about eight hundred metres of LX-5 cable."

  "What for?" Pennlington asked.

  "You'll see," Harry smiled enigmatically.

  * * *

  Harry gently eased the ship into the junkyard. There was no sign of their opponents, which was not surprising. The contestants had to circle the Moon before entering the maze from contrary directions, but it was generally held that it was better to land on the Moon and come in later, hoping to sight the opposition searching in the maze. Van Lugt had used this strategy quite successfully, relying on Marisa's superior navigational skills to catch their prey. Harry had flown as quickly as feasible, and he was fairly confident he had arrived first. He searched for a large, abandoned craft, and he quickly found what he was looking for. He eased his craft into a huge gaping hole, then landed.

  He quickly suited up and entered the other vehicle. He slowly dragged a large drum of cable, then he disappeared into the hold of the other ship. After about five minutes, he returned, dragging a line of the cable behind him. He re-entered his ship, and began wiring expertly. Finally, he felt satisfied. He then ordered the major parts of the ship to be shut down, and ordered Pennlington into a space suit.

  "It'll keep you warm," Harry smiled.

  "But . . ."

  "We're going to wait it out," Harry smiled. "For this to work, we must not generate any more electromagnetic signals than are absolutely essential. I've wired our ship into the scanners of the hulk, so we can see what's going on around there, but they can't see us."

  "Isn't this a bit, well . . . sneaky?"

  "You could say that," Harry smiled. "It's a fish strategy. They fight for survival in large sp
aces of three dimensions, but only a very few of them think of hiding within something. Like the fish, eventually our opponents will float by, and we dart out and get them. By the time they do, the probability is that they'll be pretty tired, and not very alert."

  "What if they give up and go home?"

  "Neither Marisa nor van Lugt will accept that," Harry said. "And since they know I'm an opponent, they'll know I won't either. By the way, don't feel bad about being sneaky; if we play by their rules, we could lose."

  "Somehow this doesn't seem –"

  "You put me in command," Harry reminded him firmly. "Get some sleep. I'll take the first watch."

  * * *

  Van Lugt's ship approached the hulk three times over the next two days, but always from the wrong side. Once the ship came very close to the hulk, and Harry wondered whether their sensors could detect the limited power being used. The ideal strategy then would be to fire all weapons when the opponent approached the hole, for there was no way to investigate without becoming very vulnerable. The difficulty for Harry was that the weapons would not fire without the motors running on at least one-third power, and to engage the motors while inside a hulk could be very dangerous. To get oneself killed on an exercise was rather stupid, and to survive after wrecking a fully operational space vehicle would certainly leave one out of favour! Harry never had to find out, for eventually their opponents drifted away. An added benefit to Harry's strategy was that many of the old hulks still retained some electrical activity; old nuclear reactors were left running, generating power, keeping basic life support systems going. Nobody used them, but it was only by keeping them going that they could be maintained in working order; some day some use might be made of them.

  It was in the fifty-ninth hour that van Lugt's ship approached again, and it was clear it would drift by close to the hole. Harry activated the weapons system, calculated the time of closest contact, then draped the foil across a large wire frame and sent it away from the hole on a very slow trajectory, and above the plane he would have to use to emerge from the hole, "above" being defined from the cockpit of the opponent's ship. It was so dark it would be almost invisible, but it would give strong reflections in some other parts of the spectrum, and if probed, it would give huge induction signals. Something almost invisible, but giving huge sensor readings; a most unusual object, and Harry knew that no matter what Cornelius might think, it would hold his attention for a few seconds, if for no other reason than the instrument readings he would see would be very similar to those expected from a genuine M'starn vessel. His own ship was given a slight push, so it began to emerge from the hole at the critical time. As expected, he was presented with a clear shot at the underside of van Lugt's ship, at seven hundred metre's range. He fired his motors and his weapon system at the same time. Within two seconds the computers on both ships recorded the same message: Ship Destroyed.